Recently, automation with computers has been developed in financial institutions and so on. However, transaction operations in which information is hand-written in printed forms, having predetermined formats for each kind of transactions, have still been performed. The forms in which the customer has hand-written the information are submitted at the reception counter. Therefore, there are caused direct effects upon customer services, for example, customers are kept waiting for a long time, as a lot of time is spared for processing of the forms when a large amount of entered forms are received at the reception counter. In addition, the financial institutions have had problems such as high costs for printing of forms, and requirements for spaces for having the forms ready, as all sorts of forms are required to be prepared beforehand. On the other hand, unification and reorganization have been developed among financial institutions by a so-called big bang which has been widely discussed lately. Therefore, improved customer-services, and cost reduction have been required in the financial institutions in order to keep them alive, and a solution for these problems has been eagerly desired.
Forms have been ready in financial institutions for transactions (notification) such as bank transfer, notification of change of an address, notification of opening of a new bank account, and notification of loss of a card. Predetermined formats are printed on the forms according to the kinds of transactions. In other words, there are plural kinds of forms according to the kinds of transactions, and the forms have been separately ready for each kind of transactions on information counters or desks for entry into forms.
The customers select a form for a pertinent transaction among a plurality of kinds of forms; enter predetermined items (an account number, a name, and so on) in the form, and, thereafter, hand in the entered forms to an information desk as steps for transactions in a financial institution. Thereby, the information desk processes the received forms with a form processing device. The above form processing device comprises functions for discerning of the kinds of forms, and for optical recognition of hand-written characters entered on forms.
Then, if there are found oversights or errors in items to be entered, and characters which have been entered in the form can not be recognized during the processing of the form, the information desk calls a customer who has submitted the pertinent form; points out the oversights, the errors, and so on; and asks the customer to enter the items again. The above customer submits the form again, after correcting or revising the pointed parts.
However, there has been a problem that high costs are required for printing of the forms, as, in conventional transactions using forms, the financial institutions are required for smooth operations previously to store various kinds of forms the number of which is equal to or larger than that of a predetermined one. And, as fully enough spaces for having various kinds of the forms ready have been required to be secured, there has been a remarkable problem in securing the spaces, especially, in branch Stores of financial institutions with a narrow floor area.
In addition, there has been also a problem that the customer services are made worse, as there have conventionally been repeated exchanges of forms between a customer and an information desk when there are oversights or errors in items of forms to be entered, and other customers are kept waiting during the exchanges.
It is an object of this invention to provide an automatic transaction device with reduced costs and smaller spaces for forms, and improved customer services.